Form N245 Variation of Payment: What to Do When the Debtor's Instalment Order Is Too Low

The court ordered your debtor to pay £200 a month. Three months later, a Form N245 arrives — the debtor wants to drop payments to £30 a month, citing reduced income. Or worse, the debtor has applied to set aside the judgment entirely. Either way, your recovery timeline just lengthened dramatically, and you need to know how to respond.

What Form N245 Does

Form N245 is an application by the debtor to vary an existing payment order or suspend a warrant of enforcement. The debtor files it at the county court with a detailed financial statement showing income, essential expenditure and other debts. Common reasons include job loss, reduced hours, illness, or a claim that the original instalment amount was set without accurate financial information.

The court sends you a copy of the debtor's application and financial statement. You have 16 days from the date of service to file a notice of objection or acceptance. If you accept, the court issues a varied instalment order; if you object, a court officer determines a proportionate payment rate based on the financial information.

How to Object to the Proposed Payment Plan

If the debtor's proposed instalments are unreasonably low, file a written objection within the 16-day window. Your objection should address the debtor's financial statement directly:

Challenge inflated expenses. The debtor's financial statement uses the Standard Financial Statement (SFS) format. Compare each category against published SFS trigger figures. A single person claiming £400 per month on food, or a debtor listing £200 in "miscellaneous" without itemisation, invites scrutiny.

Highlight omitted income. Check whether the statement accounts for all household income — a partner's earnings, benefits, rental income from a spare room, or regular cash-in-hand work. The SFS requires household income, not just the debtor's personal salary.

Point to assets that could pay the judgment. If the debtor owns property, holds savings, or has recently made large purchases, note this in your objection. An instalment order may not be the right outcome if the debtor has a realisable asset that could satisfy the debt in full.

Propose a specific counter-figure. Do not just say "too low." Calculate what you believe the debtor can afford based on their own disclosed figures, and state that amount in your objection. Courts respond better to specific proposals than to general complaints.

What Happens After Your Objection

If both parties cannot agree, a court officer determines a proportionate payment rate using the SFS guidelines. Either party can then request a judicial redetermination — a District Judge reviews the figures on paper without a hearing. If the redetermination still produces an unsatisfactory result, either side can request an oral hearing, though this is uncommon for variation applications.

When the Debtor Applies to Set Aside the Judgment

A set-aside application (under CPR Part 13) is different from a variation. The debtor is not asking to pay less — they are asking the court to cancel the judgment entirely, usually because they claim they never received the claim form or they have a defence with a real prospect of success.

A pending set-aside application does not automatically suspend enforcement. However, courts routinely grant a temporary stay once the application is listed for a hearing. If you have a warrant or writ in progress, the bailiff or HCEO will be directed to hold off until the judge decides.

If the judgment is set aside, the claim goes back to trial. If the set-aside is refused, enforcement continues as before. You can oppose the set-aside application by filing evidence that the claim was properly served and that the debtor has no real defence.

Protecting Your Position

When a variation or set-aside is pending, you can still apply for a Charging Order (Form N379, £139) against the debtor's property. A charging order does not require immediate payment — it secures the debt against the asset and survives any variation of the instalment order. If the debtor later sells the property, your charge is paid from the proceeds.

Our CCJ Enforcement Guide covers the full variation and set-aside process, including template objection language, the SFS analysis framework, and when to escalate from instalments to direct enforcement.

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